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August 24, 2002 pants pranks
Those inscrutable Chinese and their pants pranks!
After losing weight on The Divorce Diet, my Relaxed Fit, Pleated Front khakis were slipping pubis-high. Dressing for work one morning, I caught a glimpse of myself in the full-length hall mirror. I looked like a white rapper, at least from the waist down. Prep Diddy. So I bit a major bullet and ventured to the local mall in search of The Gap. My fumblings in the racks eventually caught the jaded eye of a young salesgirl.
"Need some help?" she offered. My left arm was shoulder-deep in jumbled pants that had not been sorted or folded since Clinton's first term.
"Who? me?" I responded. "No, no. I only came here to fondle fabric." I instantly regretted the sarcasm, not because it was nasty, but because it was wasted. The clerk stared back at me, slack-jawed, and adjusted her Britney Spears-style headset.
I surrendered. "Okay, yes. I need some help. I need a lot of help. My pants are falling off me and I wish to purchase a smaller size."
Understanding crept over her face, slowly, like a dawning day. "The same kind as those?" she was pointing to my knee-level khaki crotch. "What size are they?"
I didn't know. "I'm not sure. Would you take a look?" I turned my back to the clerk and pulled the waistband away from my body, hoping to expose the inner tag that would give her the information she needed. Instead of peering into my slacks, the girl backed away and mumbled something into her mouthpiece.
"I'll be right back," she said.
She wasn't.
Although I suffered a low back strain in the process, I eventually read my pants tag without actually removing them. I have a Dressing Room Phobia which began in my pre-teen years when my mother would not only insist she go shopping with me, but would force me to try everything on while she stood outside the dressing room door in plain view of my passing friends. Anyway, since the pants were a 32 waist, I bought several pairs with a 31-inch waist. naturally, I didn't try them on.
In the privacy of the Alhambra, I discovered the new khakis were too small. The 32s were too big, the 31s were too small. I looked at myself in the mirror, gut sucked in, barely breathing, and I smiled.
© 2002 by the beastmaster